Ferdinand I | Holy Roman Emperor, Spanish Monarch, Catholic Ruler | Britannica (original) (raw)

Quick Facts

Byname:

Ferdinand the Great

Spanish:

Fernando el Magno

Ferdinand I (born 1016/18—died December 27, 1065, León, Leon) was the first ruler of Castile to take the title of king. He also was crowned emperor of Leon.

Ferdinand’s father, Sancho III of Navarre, had acquired Castile and established hegemony over the Christian states. On his death in 1035 he left Navarre to his eldest son (García III) and Castile to his second son, Ferdinand, who had married Sancha, sister and heiress of Bermudo III of Leon. Ferdinand’s Castilians defeated and killed Bermudo at Tamarón in 1037, and he had himself crowned emperor in the city of León in 1039. In 1054 his Castilian troops defeated and killed his elder brother, García III, at Atapuerca, and he added Navarre to his possessions. In 1062 he forced the Muslim ruler of Toledo to pay him tribute and imposed vassalage on Saragossa and Sevilla. He conquered Coimbra in central Portugal in 1064 and laid siege to Valencia, but he failed to capture it.

He followed the custom of dividing his estates, leaving Castile to the eldest, Sancho II; Leon to the second, Alfonso VI; and Galicia to the third, García II. The first two dispossessed the third, and, on the murder of Sancho, Alfonso recovered the whole, becoming emperor of Castile and Leon.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.